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Conflict of interests

Conflicts of interest appear when professional judgments or the professional actions regarding a primary interest are influenced by a secondary interest or another individual. PIE recommends to all authors, editors and peer-reviewers to disclose immediately any associations that may pose intellectual or financial conflict of interest in connection with their work.

However, if there are conflicts of interests and the article is published anyway, a footnote that discloses the conflict must be published along with the text. Editors may also publish erratum in order to disclose conflicts of interest that were not disclosed in due time, before or during the publication process.

Ways to handle conflicts of interest:

Removal: the best and most efficient way to handle editorial conflicts of interest is to avoid them entirely. Of course, sometimes it will not be possible and other actions must be undertaken.

Disclosure: while authors may disclose their conflict of interest prior to writing or submitting an article, in some cases their pieces will be published anyway, along with footnotes that disclose their conflicts. If the publisher fails to do so, further corrections may be published in other issues of the journal.

Exception: individuals who are aware of their conflict of interest are expected to abstain from decisions or journalistic investigations where such conflicts exist.

Third party evaluation: when conflicts of interest are not obvious and other individuals assess whether they exists or not.